APPLIED INNOVATION MANAGEMENT

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1 APPLIED INNOVATION MANAGEMENT brought to you by InnovationManagement # COLLABORATIVE IDEA MANAGEMENT - Using the creativity of crowds to drive innovation by Magnus Karlsson Director New Business Development & Innovation at Ericsson Headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden.

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS PART 1 INTRODUCTION PAGE 3 About this article About the author Welcome to the Forum The Knowledge PART 2 UNDERSTANDING THEORY & BACKGROUND PAGE 7 Innovation on the agenda What is idea management? Idea management challenges Why is it important? 1. Best ideas from employees 2. The art of combination 3. Early stages are critical 4. Benefits from collaboration 5. Idea management is maturing PART 3 METHODOLOGY & PRACTICE INSIGHTS PAGE 13 Designing practices and tools 1. Invite everyone 2. Use self-organization 3. Embrace collaboration 4. Leverage feedback 5. Integrate with 2.0 efforts Is your organization ready? Do you have multiple innovation needs? Are you prepared to support innovation demand? Do you have the right organizational culture? Can you use an existing Enterprise 2.0 initative? Are you prepared to learn as you go? Concluding remark Mistakes we learnt from PART 4 USING & IMPLEMENTING THE KNOWLEDGE PAGE 22 Do it yourself Build on your innovation or collaboration strategy Find the right tools for your organization Engage internal communities of early adopters Establish guidelines and demonstrate value early Scale up and extend to Customers and partners Further reading APPLIED # brought INNOVATION to you by MANAGEMENT 2 InnovationManagement copywright 2010, ymer&partners ab. all rights reserved.

3 PART1 INTRODUCTION PART 1 PROVIDES AN INTRODUCTION TO THE ARTICLE, WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT FROM IT, INFORMATION ABOUT THE AUTHOR, A SHORT SUMMARY INCLUDING SOME BEST PRACTICE EXAMPLES. About this article About the author Welcome to the Forum The knowledge in brief The knowledge in practice 3

4 About this article Applied Innovation Management is a series of articles for innovation management practitioners created in collaboration with experts in the field of innovation management from leading companies, business schools and universities. This article discusses an approach to collaborative idea management based on the initial experience by Ericsson and insights from other organizations. In addition five design rules will be high-lighted to inspire your organization to put a collaborative idea management system in place. Collaborative idea management is a way to engage all the employees in your organization to drive innovation. A systematic approach to gathering and channeling ideas will give you the advantage of: utilizing the diversity and collective creativity of all employees ensuring that the right ideas end up meeting your relevant innovation needs being able to measure and drive front-end innovation activities providing participants with feedback and recognition integrating idea management with other innovation and collaboration practices and tools. THIS IS WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT FROM THIS ARTICLE This article will provide you with fresh experiences and insights from how Ericsson worked with designing and introducing a collaborative ideas management system. It will enable you to: get a basic understanding of both the problems and solutions connected to collaborative idea management achieve more constructive and higher quality management team discussion by providing a common ground and a common language about preparing for collaborative idea management better reflect on the structure of your company and take action to create an environment that supports collaborative idea management prepare for the challenges, and avoid repeating the mistakes of others identify the vital steps that needs to be considered when designing and implementing a collaborative idea management system. 4

5 About the author Magnus Karlsson is Director New Business Development & Innovation at Ericsson Headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden. He joined Ericsson in 1998 and has been working in the areas of external research relations, strategic foresight and innovation management. Recently, he was driving the Group-wide scenario planning project Communicating Worlds Between 2003 and 2006 he served as Science & Technology Counselor at the Embassy of Sweden in Washington D.C. responsible for policy and technology intelligence. In a previous foreign assignment, he worked at the Office of Science & Technology at the Embassy of Sweden in Tokyo, Japan. Magnus Karlsson He has two basic academic degrees in Applied Physics and International Relations as well as a Ph.D. degree in Technology and Social Change from Linköping University, Sweden. Why should organizations improve their innovation management skills? Going beyond pure luck and invest in a systematic approach to innovation will increase the ability of your organization to drive productivity and renewal. Better management of innovation will improve performance and the chances to prosper in the future. Why are you interested in innovation management? The complexity of innovation is the challenge. It involves people, structures and processes throughout an organization. Culture is the key to get it right. Welcome to the Forum The InnovationManagementForum.com provides a platform and channel of communication exclusively dedicated to innovation management. You are also invited to discuss questions that you might have about how to implement the knowledge presented in this article in your organization. This is a valuable opportunity to exchange experiences with likeminded and with colleagues from around the world. The author of this article will also take part in these discussions. (open and free for everyone) 5

6 THE KNOWLEDGE IN BRIEF Many organizations are trying to find effective ways to handle new ideas - ranging from small improvements to radical new business innovations - to drive growth and renewal. How do you effectively use the creative potential of your employees, customers and partners to address the innovation challenge? And how do you make sure ideas reach the right people who can take action? At the same time many organizations are implementing new collaborative IT tools that will allow employees across the organization to work together effectively using discussion forums, wikis etc. The new IT tools have an impact on the corporate culture, driving openness, sharing and collaboration within the organization. This article will discuss an approach to collaborative idea management based on the initial experience by Ericsson and insights from other organizations. Five design rules are high-lighted to inspire your organization to put a collaborative idea management system in place: (1) Invite everyone to engage the entire organization, (2) Use the principle of self-organization to handle complexity, (3) Embrace collaboration to leverage expertise and a diversity of perspectives, (4) Secure feedback and recognition for a sustainable initiative, and (5) Integrate idea management into your overall collaboration effort. When innovation is more important than ever, collaborative idea management can help organizations to surface new ideas internally and externally, collaborate to improve them and make sure they reach the right people. It is also a way to empower and recognize innovative employees, to measure and stimulate creative activity and to promote a more open and collaborative innovation culture in the organization. IN PRACTICE A number of organizations have implemented different types of idea management systems. Some are internal initiatives; others have focused on gathering external ideas. The degree of collaboration and openness also varies between the different implementations. Some examples of internally focused systems are ThinkPlace by IBM, Innovation Grapevine by Accenture and Innovation E-space by Whirlpool. IdeaStorm from Dell, YourIdea from 3M and Idea X from Best Buy are examples of externally focused systems. Ericsson started to pilot a system for collaborative idea management called IdeaBoxes in We decided to develop a solution ourselves, fully integrated into our Microsoft SharePoint environment and aligned with the collaboration strategy. Participation has grown bottom up, through viral marketing internally and use has been boosted by several focused idea generation campaigns. In mid-2010, the system had over 9000 ideas, comments and about 150 idea boxes, each reflecting a specific innovation need. In IdeaBoxes, all ideas are open to all employees, box managers are responsible for handling the ideas within his/her boxes and ideas self-organize into boxes automatically using keyword matching. Next, the ambition is to open up and invite customers and partners to participate. 6

7 PART 2 UNDERSTANDING THEORY & BACKGROUND PART 2 PROVIDES A DISCUSSION OF SOME OF THE CHALLENGES RELATED TO THE SUBJECT OF THIS ARTICLE. IT INCLUDES EXAMPLES AND A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING THE MECHANISMS RELATED TO THE CHALLENGES OF INTRODUCING AND IMPLEMENTING COLLABORATIVE IDEA MANAGEMENT. Innovation on the agenda What is idea management? Idea management challenges Why is it important? 7

8 Many organizations are facing an urgent need to exploit new ideas and opportunities to meet increasing competitive pressure and changing customer demands. The recent economic recession has further accelerated the urgency of innovation across industries and globally. But from where do you get those much needed breakthrough ideas to drive growth, productivity and value creation? Are you effectively using the creative potential of your employees, customers and partners to address the innovation challenge? Many organizations are trying to find new ways to handle ideas and to improve the productivity of creative work across larger groups of people. The efforts to uncover and exploit the creativity and knowledge of the collective has been discussed in several popular publications recently (for example Wikinomics by Don Tapscott & Anthony Williams, 2006, Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki, 2004 and Group Genius by Keith Sawyer, 2007). When innovation is more important than ever, collaborative idea management can help organizations to surface new ideas, improve them and make sure they reach the right people. It is also a way to empower and recognize innovative employees, to measure and stimulate creative activity and to promote a more open and collaborative innovation culture in the organization. What are the key design rules and success factors to consider when attempting to implement a sustainable system of practices and tools? WHAT IS IDEA MANAGEMENT? Idea management is a structured process for the collection, handling, selection and distribution of ideas. It may include support for gathering, storing, improving, evaluating and prioritizing ideas by providing methods and tools, such as templates and guidelines. Idea management is an integrated part of the innovation process. In the approach proposed by Hansen & Birkinshaw, idea management is facilitating the flow from idea generation to idea conversion in the innovation value chain (Hansen & Birkinshaw, 2007). Using the language of Järrehult, idea management is supporting the diverging ideation phase of the fuzzy middle after insighting and before implementation of the innovation reactor (Järrehult, 2009). See figure 1, page 9. Realizing that we are in the beginning of learning journey, this article will discuss an approach to collaborative idea management based on the initial experience by Ericsson and insights from other organizations. THE KEY ISSUES TO BE ADDRESSED ARE: What is collaborative idea management and why is it important? Idea management is relevant for all types of ideas, from incremental improvements to new and disruptive business opportunities. It can be ideas for improving the sales process, ideas for improving an existing product, ideas for an entirely new business model to service new customers, ideas to solve a technical problem, ideas to reduce cost in administration or ideas to improve customer engagement. 8

9 Strategy Foresight Ideation Idea management Study Development Implementation FIGURE 1 Idea management is a structured process for the collection, handling, selection and distribution of ideas. But how do you channel the right ideas to the right places when the landscape of innovation needs is not easily defined top down? The scope can range from being limited to one internal unit, to cover the entire organization, to include also external stakeholders, such as customers and partners. Idea management can be time-limited idea generation campaigns or a set up to handle ideas on a more continuous basis. Tools for idea management have evolved from basically an electronic version of the traditional suggestion box using , to more advanced web-based systems allowing users to share, comment and rate ideas. IDEA MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES The handling of ideas in organizations involves several challenges. First, the more people you engage the more difficult it gets to evaluate and give feedback on all the ideas. You need an alternative to channeling all ideas through one central point that quickly gets choked. Second, larger organizations typically have numerous and diverse innovation needs throughout the organization. Defining the innovation needs is a critical success factor to focus idea management efforts on the relevant themes and challenges. But how do you channel the right ideas to the right places when the landscape of innovation needs is not easily defined top down? Third, for an idea management system to be sustainable you need to look beyond an IT solution. You need an infrastructure with guidelines and processes that is integrated with the overall innovation and collaboration efforts and aligned with organizational culture. That is easier said than done! A fourth challenge is to engage employees to come up with new ideas and to con- 9

10 External drivers Customer interactions Market research Frustrations with existing processes Company goals Internal drivers Natural ambition Desire for meaningful work Career goals Satisfy customers tribute them. In a recent blog post, Hutch Carpenter argues that employees are intrinsically motivated to come up with new ideas. Every day, employees think of ideas relevant to the organization. It is just happening as a part of their daily work. Ideas are generated from customer interactions, frustration with existing processes, individual career goals, the desire for meaningful work and so on. Carpenter calls the factors that produce employees innovation energy for the innovation dark matter of the organization (figure 2). The challenge for organizations is to harness these motivations and provide an outlet for them. The most innovative companies know how to effectively leverage their innovation dark energy (Carpenter, 2009). Finally, organizations must ensure that their collaborative idea management initiatives actually deliver on the wisdom of the crowd promise. If the perception is that you just get more mediocre ideas, the effort will not be long-lived. FIGURE 2 The factors that produce employees innovation energy. Source: Organizations Innovation Dark Energy - Employee Motivations (Carpenter, 2009). 10

11 The innovation imperative many organizations are facing is the overall driver to explore more effective ways to exploit creative and knowledge resources. A quote form the recent book Enterprise 2.0 is summing up this argument: Companies don t know what they know but they need to learn soon (McAffe, 2009). In addition, there are at least five reasons why it is important to look at collaborative idea management now. 1. BEST IDEAS FROM EMPLOYEES People inside your organization are actually the most important source of innovative ideas. According to the IBM Global CEO Study, employees were the most significant source of ideas, closely followed by business partners and customers (IBM, 2006). The importance of tapping the creativity of your employees is confirmed by the research of Terwiesch & Ulrich showing that across industries, about half of the innovation opportunities are created internally. Another quarter comes from interaction with customers (Terwiesch & Ulrich, 2009). It is a good idea to start managing ideas internally to learn and get some experience and then expand to include customers and partners. 2. THE ART OF COMBINATION Innovation is fundamentally a collaborative effort. It usually emerges from a series of sparks rather than from a single source of insight. According to the research of Sawyer, innovations emerge over time as a result of a collaborative effort a continuous process combining a long chain of ideas. Successful innovation is the combination of just the right ideas in just the right structure (Sawyer, See also for example Duggan, 2007 and Fleming, 2007). Moreover, the most successful organizations are shifting from trying to own and control the entire creative web for achieving this, to a more collaborative approach. As Henry Chesbrough argues in his frequently cited work on open innovation, is not likely that all the smart people work for your organization (Chesbrough, 2003). Organizations are moving beyond the internal R&D lab to make innovation an integrated part of the entire organization, also extending the value creating network to their customers, suppliers, partners, and even their competitors. A fundamental characteristic of the most innovative companies in the world is that they clearly understand both their core capabilities and those of their partners as they collaborate to deliver innovative products and services (Innovaro, 2008). It makes sense to place internal and external collaboration at the center of your idea management effort. 3. EARLY STAGES ARE CRITICAL It turns out that the early stages are fundamental to a successful innovation management process. AT Kearney studied innovation leaders and found that they invest more than three times as much effort in the front end of the innovation process than do followers. The focus on innovation strategy, idea generation and 11

12 idea screening together with open collaboration with customers and partners, are the activities most strongly connected with an organization s success in innovation management. The study also concluded that, compared to followers, leaders considered a larger number of ideas to start with while selecting fewer of the ideas for concept development (AT Kearney, 2008). Other studies are confirming the importance of idea management for innovation excellence. In a recent study, Arthur D. Little outlines three different innovation engines (idea-driven, research-driven and analysisdriven) that are used for innovation management and can be found across companies and industries. Their analysis of top innovators shows that idea management, together with product/service portfolio management, are major differentiation factors across all innovation engines (Arthur D. Little, 2010). In short, front-loading the innovation process by putting in place a system for idea management may be well worth the investment. 4. BENEFITS FROM COLLABORATION For a couple of years now, organizations have increasingly adopted a set of internet applications often called Web 2.0 technologies to drive internal and external collaboration. Applications include shared workspaces, blogs, social networking, discussion forums, wikis, podcasts, rating, tagging etc. Organizations are growing increasingly comfortable using the new tools. Younger employees are typically early adopters and are driving change in ways of working, mind-set and corporate culture. Keywords are openness, diversity and collaboration. The tools have a strong bottom-up element engaging a broad base of employees, building on their collective knowledge, creativity and motivation. The term Enterprise 2.0 is sometimes used to describe how Web 2.0 technologies are used by organizations to become more agile, productive and innovative (see for example McAffe, 2009). In a recent global survey by McKinsey, about 70 percent of the companies say they have gained measurable business benefits from their Web 2.0 investments, including an increasing number of successful innovations for new products or services (McKinsey, 2009). We will see continued investments in Web 2.0 technologies as organizations striving to capture benefits will leverage collaboration platforms and social software to support innovation processes, including idea management. 5. IDEA MANAGEMENT IS MATURING Idea management as such is not a new concept; the first generations of tools and practices have been established for quite some time. According to Gartner s Hype Cycle Special Report for 2009, idea management has passed the hype phase and started the journey to maturity. Technology companies were early adopters with service industries and governments recently following. At the same time, at the top of the hype curve, we find social technologies, such as social software and external community platforms. A number of early adopters have started to deploy and experiment with these technologies in their organizations (Gartner, 2009). Now is the time to build upon the existing idea management experience and follow the trend towards more open and social tools and practices. 12

13 PART 3 METHODOLOGY & PRACTICE INSIGHTS PART 3 PROVIDES SOME SOLUTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS ABOUT HOW TO DESIGN PRACTICES AND TOOLS TO WORK WITH COLLABORATIVE IDEA MANAGEMENT. THE SOLUTIONS ARE BASED ON A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND BEST PRACTICE INSIGHTS FROM INITIAL EXPERIENCES AT ERICSSON AND OTHER ORGANIZATIONS. Designing practices and tools Is your organization ready? Concluding remark Mistakes we learnt from 13

14 DESIGNING PRACTICES AND TOOLS How do you design and implement collaborative idea management? The core of the IT tool is the idea database. The basic components are support for users to submit new ideas, comment and develop already existing ones as well as support for managers to capture, track and further develop promising ideas. Finally you need support to administrate, measure and follow-up. However, a collaborative idea management system is not only an IT tool. Important for a sustainable approach is to put in place practices, including guidelines and processes, to ensure that tools are aligned and integrated with your overall innovation and business efforts.!"# $%&'()*+,-./ :;<=>? Skarzynski & Gibson have proposed a set of requirements for organizations that wants to enlarge and enhance their innovation pipeline (figure 3). Their recommendation is to have broad and diverse involvement, across the organization and beyond, and to generate a lot of ideas within selected innovation themes (Skarzynski & Gibson, 2008). The following design rules, based on the initial experience at Ericsson and insights from other organizations, might help when considering getting serious about idea management. Slide title minimum 32 pt (32 pt makes 2 rows) Text and bullet level 1 minimum 24 pt Bullets level 2-5 minimum 20 ^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{ }~ ¹º»¼½ÀÁÂÃÄÅÆÇÈËÌÍÎÏÐÑÒÓÔÕÖ ØÙ ÚÛÜÝÞßàáâãäåæçèéêëìíîïðñòóôõö øùúûüýþ ÿāāăăąććċċčďďđđēėėęęěěğğġġģģīīįįiıķķ ĹĺĻļĽľŁłŃńŅņŇňŌŐőŒœŔŕŖŗŘřŚśŞşŠšŢţŤťŪ ūůůűűųųŵŵŷŷÿźźżżžžƒșșˆˇ ẀẁẃẄẅỲ Do not add objects or text in the footer area Involve many minds Harness the creativity inside and outside your organization Sow enough seeds Generate a lot of ideas to yield a few big winners. Widen the front end Consider a broad range of innovation opportunities Increase the combinations Invite game-changing ideas by combining diverse perspectives. Ideate around specific themes Focus efforts on clearly defined challenges and issues. FIGURE 3: Guidelines for creating an innovation Ericsson AB 2009 Ericsson Figure Internal 3: Guidelines X (X) for creating Date an innovation p pipeline. Source: Innovation Innovation to the Core to the (Skarzynski Core (Skarzynski & Gibson, 20 & Gibson, 2008). 14

15 1. INVITE EVERYONE Involving everyone in your organization in collaborative idea management will increase the benefits. As you broaden innovation participation from the strategy and R&D departments, to the entire organization and beyond to include customers and partners you will have more ideas and thus increase the likelihood of getting a few really good ones. Innovation is a statistical game. What you want are exceptional opportunities that can be turned into profits and competitive advantage. But most ideas are mediocre and useless and will never be realized. Idea waste and failure is thus expected and a natural part of the innovative and collaborative organization. The conclusion is that you must start by generating a lot of ideas to finally arrive at a few high-value breakthrough ideas. Fleming calls these breakthroughs the long tail of innovation. To get to the breakthroughs, you have to understand the process that generates the entire distribution. According to Fleming, the process involves three things: (1) generating many ideas, (2) maximizing the value of each idea, (3) expand the variability of those ideas (Fleming, 2007). Increasing the value of each idea by matching supply and demand on the one hand, and by openness and collaboration on the other, will be discussed in the design rules below. Having broad participation in idea generation inside as well as outside the organization not only increases the number of ideas but also the range of perspectives resulting in greater diversity or variability of those ideas. In large organizations, many of the best product, partnership, and management ideas come from the edges of the organization. Practices from a number of innovative companies, including P&G, Best Buy and GE show that diversity fuels innovation. To maximize diversity, you want to include young people, newly employed, people from other geographical locations as well as external stakeholders in the innovation process (Skarzynski & Gibson, 2008). Finally, by inviting all employees you make the statement that innovation is everyone s job. Collaborative idea management can serve as an instrument to empower creative employees, engage everyone in thinking about renewal and improvements, and to drive a culture of innovation. 2. USE SELF-ORGANIZATION With many users and a large number of ideas, complexity is increasing. Also, in large organizations there are many and diverse innovation needs distributed across the organization as discussed above. This means you need a structured approach to channeling ideas from multiple sources to multiple potential destinations in the organization. It is not feasible to administrate and guide all ideas through one central point in the system and in many large organizations it is equally difficult to build a predefined structure of where specific innovation needs are located within the hierarchy. A compelling solution is to build a scalable and selforganizing system where innovation needs can be activated as they are identified and that ideas are au- SELF-ORGANIZATION IN BRIEF No central control, committee or hub. Innovation managers are responsible for defining their innovation needs, add/remove boxes, and for providing feedback to idea creators. New ideas can be matched automatically to relevant boxes using keywords. All users can link ideas to create clusters of similar ideas in order to connect idea creators and to facilitate idea evaluation. All users can alert other people in the organization, e.g. experts, which can comment and improve on existing ideas. 15

16 Slide title inimum 32 pt akes 2 rows) An open market for ideas bullet level 1 inimum 24 pt llets level 2-5 inimum 20 pt All employees Experts & coaches Box managers 789:;<=>? PQRSTUVWXYZ[\] tuvwxyz{ }~ ËÌÍÎÏÐÑÒÓÔÕÖ ØÙ ëìíîïðñòóôõö øùúûüýþ ėęęěěğğġġģģīīįįiıķķ ŔŕŖŗŘřŚśŞşŠšŢţŤťŪ žƒșșˆˇ ẀẁẃẄẅỲ New Ideas Rating & Comments Feedback Idea Boxes Evaluate Claim Award Supply Demand bjects or text e footer area tomatically matched towards the existing innovation needs at any one time. In this way, collaborative idea management is implemented like an internal idea marketplace an open network for the exchange of ideas without any central control or guidance. For this to work, we need to introduce the role of innovation manager in the system. An innovation manager typically own one or more (1) innovation needs in the organization and have a (2) process and dedicated (3) resources to take ideas to reality within that scope. Any person in the organization that fulfills these requirements can become an innovation manager in the system. Each innovation need is described in a dedicated suggestion box in the system and each box can have one or more innovation managers responsible for evaluating and selecting the best ideas for action (figure 4). In this way, the demandside of the idea market is emerging from the aggregation of numerous idea boxes reflecting real innovation needs across the organization. On the supply-side of the market, employees in their roles as users in the system, get a clear overview of current innovation needs and can post ideas in one or more boxes, manually or automatically using keyword matching. Boxes are added and removed continuously as innovation needs evolve. An idea that does not match any particular box is kept in the system and is picked up as soon as a box targeting the relevant innovation need is opened. With this self-organizing mechanism in place, the system can easily scale from one to several hundred boxes. The system is governed by the collective of currently active innovation managers, each responsible and accountable for their respective boxes and for handling the ideas matching their defined innovation needs. Active innovation managers and boxes can easily be identified by all users and may attract more attention and ideas. In short, the innovation energy of employees in the organization gets directed toward real innovation needs that are backed by active innovation managers FIGURE 4 An open and collaborative idea marketplace. The supply is all the ideas provided by employees the demand is the innovation needs expressed in idea boxes by box managers. 16

17 and as a result increase the likelihood of the ideas being evaluated and acted upon. The concept of self-organization is one of the most remarkable properties of Enterprise 2.0 but, to be fair, it does not come naturally to most organizations. A new mind-set is required to trust the collective and let go of central control (see for example McAffe, 2009). 3. EMBRACE COLLABORATION Building on broad participation and selforganization, collaboration based on openness is (of course) the key feature of a collaborative idea management system. Collaboration will help surface new ideas, improve existing ideas, leverage expert knowledge in the organization, provide feedback to users and help innovation managers to select and act on the best ideas. New ideas are formed when people of different backgrounds, expertise and interests talk to each other. Therefore, cross pollination through collaboration across units internally and with external stakeholders, such as customers and partners, is important to spark innovation. Diversity generates higher value Value Breakthroughs Failures Single discipline breakthroughs become more likely. According to the research by Lee Fleming, it may well be that the average value of ideas will decrease with increased diversity. The conclusion is that collaborative inventors are better than lone inventors at generating a larger number of new combinations resulting in more breakthrough ideas with higher value. See figure 5 (Fleming, 2007). Also supporting the case for collaboration and connectedness is the research by Ronald Burt. His findings show that being Average Multi-discipline Connectedness means better ideas Value FIGURE 5. With increased diversity, a larger number of new combinations are generated resulting in more breakthrough ideas with higher value even if the average value of all ideas actually decrease. Adapted from Breakthroughs and the Long Tail of Innovation (Fleming, 2007). In the words of Frans Johansson, when and where different cultures, domains, and disciplines stream together toward a single point, they may connect, allowing for established concepts to clash and combine, ultimately forming a multitude of new, groundbreaking ideas. These intersection ideas are often surprising and have the power to open up new fields (Johansson, 2004). Multidisciplinary collaboration increases the variance of the ideas as discussed above in the way that failures as well as well-connected to colleagues across the organization results in generating higher quality ideas. See figure 6 (Burt, 2004). Typically, cross-unit collaboration in large organizations is rare it simply does not happen when you have decentralized Well connected FIGURE 6. Being wellconnected to colleagues across the organization results in generating higher quality ideas. Adapted from Structural Holes and Good Ideas (Burt, 2004). 17

18 structures with functionally specialized and geographically dispersed (business) units. Implementing a collaborative idea management system will encourage cross pollination where employees from any unit can contribute to the idea generation process. All users can see all the ideas and join in to comment and rate any idea in the system. One user can comment and improve an existing idea by a user from another part of the organization. This will help increase the value of each idea and at the same time build communities of users that share an interest in a particular idea or a particular innovation need (around boxes, as defined above). These idea communities will cut across the organization and leverage the innovation energy and expert knowledge of the participating users. Experience shows that users typically want to keep track of new ideas in the boxes of their respective areas of interest and expertise. This means that you will have the right people following and contributing to the right ideas selectively applying the wisdom of the crowds. In addition, collaborative ideas are more likely to be adopted because the knowledge will be diffused by the idea community through multiple paths in the organization (Fleming, 2007). Commenting, rating and the communities forming around the ideas are of great help to the innovation managers. The best ideas get better ratings and tend to have more active commenting and thus bubble up in their respective boxes. To get further support, innovation managers can assign innovation coaches to help idea creators stretch their thinking to further increase the quality of ideas. Going from no or a few specialized and local idea management systems to one, open and organization-wide system with one idea database will have several benefits. Users can avoid duplication since they will be alerted if similar ideas already exist, everyone can see who is working on what ideas, ideas that fail their original purpose or was created at the wrong time, can be picked up and used elsewhere and at a later time. PROCESS FLOW WHEN EVALUATING IDEAS 1. Users, including experts, innovation coaches and managers, comment and vote on ideas to facilitate evaluation. 2. Box managers claim ideas for interest to provide feedback to the idea creator that the idea is being screened. 3. The idea is claimed for action to indicate that the idea is relevant and that further analysis is initiated. 4. When claimed for action, the box manager can award the idea creator a virtual medal to indicate quality and usefulness. 5. Finally, an idea can be flagged as implemented in order to provide feedback to all users. to benefits that include building collaborative relationships, opening up interaction beyond sales channels and bring innovation communities from the different organizations together. 4. LEVERAGE FEEDBACK The next design rule is about providing feedback and recognition to users who are contributing their ideas. Timely and constructive feedback from peers and managers is key for sustaining any idea management effort. It improves the quality of ideas, provides idea status information, high-lights great ideas, builds reputation for successful innovators and drives innovation motivation in the organization. The innovation energy of the organization can be boosted by appealing to the egos of employees. Having your idea published for everyone to see, receiving many view hits, comments and a high rating can be a huge reward in itself. Recognition does not have to be in the form of material or monetary awards. Building reputation is an important driver in social media environments, including in idea management. Extending the system to customers and partners adds By building a workflow around a few idea stages, it is possible for idea creators and others to follow the 18

19 progress of ideas. When an idea is published it can be viewed, commented and rated by any user. At the same time the idea appear in the relevant idea boxes for innovation managers to consider. Innovation managers can move individual ideas in and out of their boxes depending on if they think the idea is relevant for their innovation need/scope or not. The idea creator is notified of all these actions. An idea will move to the next stage when an innovation manager decides to claim the idea for interest and then for action. Claiming an idea tells the idea creator and others that an innovation manager is interested in the idea and is taking action. The manager may contact the creator to get more information, send the idea to colleagues for evaluation advice or initiate a pre-study as the first step of the innovation process to realize the idea. If the idea will reach the final stage, the innovation manager can flag it as implemented in the system. Once an idea is claimed by an innovation manager, he or she can choose to grant a virtual award to the idea based on its usefulness and quality. The award can have several levels, such as bronze, silver, gold and diamond, and each innovation manager can decide if they want to translate each level into real rewards, starting with for example two movie tickets, in a particular box they are managing. Since awarded ideas can be viewed by everyone they can serve as references and examples of the type of ideas that the organization value and is looking for. Used in the right way, openness will drive learning and may increase the quality and relevance of new ideas being submitted. Idea stages and awards provide the basis for recognizing not only great idea creators but also the innovation activity for a unit or for an innovation manager. In this way, creativity and idea generation in the front end of the innovation process becomes measurable both in terms of quantity and quality. How many ideas are created by a person, a unit or the entire organization? How many of those ideas matched innovation needs and where claimed for interest by innovation managers? How many where high quality/value ideas and thus awarded? With this host of metrics available, managers can set targets for employees in order to drive the desired behavior, increase innovation activity and promote a culture of collaboration and innovation. 5. INTEGRATE WITH 2.0 EFFORTS The final design rule is about integrating the idea management tool into the general collaboration IT infrastructure of the organization. As discussed above, many organizations are launching Enterprise 2.0 initiatives involving collaboration platforms and social software. These tools are bringing new ways of working, transforming the structure and culture of the organization at the same time. Benefits are best realized if collaborative idea management connects to other applications, such as social networking, team and project collaboration and knowledge management, on those platforms. You will get an integrated workflow, unified user interface and simplified support and maintenance under a common adoption and culture change initiative. For example, a community around a specific business area might feature discussion forums, wikis and blogs bringing together people from different parts of the organization. Idea management can be an integrated part of that community to capture and develop ideas within the business area. A connection to social networking will add idea generation data, e.g number of published, awarded and implemented ideas, to the personal profiles of participants. When an idea has been selected to be worked on, a project collaboration site is opened for further evaluation, pre-study work and idea implementation. As Enterprise 2.0 initiatives move beyond organizational borders to include extranets reaching customers and partners, collaborative idea management can follow and be an integrated part of the package. For large organizations, it might be a good idea to start the learning process internally and move externally as practices and culture matures. To conclude, if you are serious about creating a sustainable idea management capability, the recommendation is to invest in a specialized application that is integrated into the general collaboration platform of the organization. 19

20 IS YOUR ORGANIZATION READY? Collaborative idea management is not right for everyone. Is your organization ready? Before you get started you might want to consider these five success factors. DO YOU HAVE MULTIPLE INNOVATION NEEDS? Collaborative idea management makes most sense in organizations where you have multiple and changing innovation needs. Also, you need to think that a diverse group of employees, customers and partners can bring different perspectives to the table to address those needs. Typically this is the case in larger organizations where innovation is needed and executed in different locations and levels. It might also be applicable to any type of organization wanting to reach out to customers and partners. ARE YOU PREPARED TO SUPPORT INNOVATION DEMAND? The success of idea management is and will always be dependent on the capability of the demand side to act on ideas handled by the system. It is desired that top management own the innovation agenda and that it is translated into strategy and budget with clear roles and responsibilities. For example, innovation managers need support from the organization to define their scope, to have dedicated resources and to set up a process. Targets and incentives will help drive motivation. are not complex as such but might challenge an organization and its culture. The new mind-set and required capabilities are often unfamiliar to many business managers. You need to trust people in your organization to collaborate rather than enforcing policies from the top. Cultural change takes time and involves both technology adoption and behavioral changes. It will always take longer than enthusiasts expect. CAN YOU USE AN EXISTING ENTERPRISE 2.0 INITATIVE? The chances of success will increase if you can join forces and integrate with an ongoing collaboration and social software effort. Idea management can connect to project collaboration sites and social networking. In this way, your innovation mission will be boosted by the Enterprise 2.0 initiative. ARE YOU PREPARED TO LEARN AS YOU GO? Most Enterprise 2.0 initiatives are still in their early stages and that includes collaborative idea management. We have still a lot to learn before we can make final recommendations on how to do it right from the beginning. Every organization is different and must be prepared to experiment to find out what works best. DO YOU HAVE THE RIGHT ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE? Tools and processes for collaborative idea management 20

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